Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not profess any particular expertise in this issue but nevertheless I have an interest in what is clearly one of the most important challenges we face in our society. I, too, congratulate the maiden speakers on their contributions, although I cannot help inclining especially towards the mayor of Watford, given her background in teaching as well.

Three little words have dominated housing policy for the past 30 years: “right to buy”. I can remember an occasion—perhaps the only time when I canvassed for the Labour Party—when I was chased down the garden path on the grounds that our local council was opposing the right to buy of the council tenant, who was somewhat reluctant to guarantee me his vote for the Labour Party in that election. It was an indelible experience. I cannot help reflecting that those three little words have had a very long consequential tale. After 30 years, if I look at my own local authority, it is no longer just the three little words but it should be five, because 50% of the property that was right to buy is now “right to buy to let”. Is that really what we intended? Does that really create the opportunity for the next generations to buy a house?

I listened carefully to my noble friend Lady Royall. Again, if we look at rural communities, we ask what happened to the social housing in them. It has gone. Of course, the right to buy was extended; now, so many of those properties have risen to the price of private sector housing, placing them beyond the reach of today’s generations. In fact, many of them have become second holiday homes. Is that really what we intended with the right to buy? I do not think so.

We should perhaps think carefully about how prescient were the housing associations of the past, such as Peabody and the Notting Hill Housing Trust. They understood the need to have a viable rented sector that provided good-quality housing at affordable prices. Of course, I cannot deny the fact that many people aspire to own their own homes but a number of homeowners are now beginning to realise that what was viable for their generation is no longer viable. If I reflect back to when I bought my first house in the late 1950s, it took me and my wife at the time a couple of years or so to save up the £500 deposit to buy a house at £3,500 and to pay a mortgage back at £13 a month, which roughly equated to my weekly wage at the time of £13 a week. Could that equation possibly exist today? Of course it could not—it is beyond the reach. The only way many young people—including my own two children from this marriage—have been able to buy their own properties is the bank of mum and dad. That is the only way my children could do it. With their current wages—and both of them are in reasonably well-paid jobs—there is no way that they could do what I managed to do all those years ago.

Therefore, of course, we have extended home ownership but we have done it at a price. Surely, if we are looking for a housing policy that is planned for the future, we have to acknowledge that we need a balance between home ownership being viable and achievable and ensuring that we still have a rented sector, which a large proportion of our society will need. They need reasonable-quality, affordable homes to rent. I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, who made a plea for community land trusts, and I echo that. She said that they were,

“an asset for the community”.

She is absolutely right, but is not social housing an asset for the community? Surely it is.

Of course, I welcome the rogue landlord banning orders, which come not before time. The situation of houses that landlords provide is absolutely appalling. It does not matter where you go: they do not care about the quality of the accommodation they provide or about how many people are crammed into these houses. Look at the programmes that have shown how appalling the situation is in London. I was therefore puzzled that an opposition Motion in the Commons to add a clause to the Bill entitled,

“Implied term of fitness for human habitation in residential lettings”—

which would have amended the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 with the intention of placing a duty on landlords to ensure that properties let were fit for habitation and remained so over the course of the tenancy—was rejected. Should that not be a given? Why would we seek to oppose that? Instead of banning rogue landlords being the cure, should we not have the prevention that that proposed new clause would have made? I hope that the Government will be prepared to think again. I, too, look forward to the continuing debate in a complex area, and I hope that the Government are willing to listen.